Technological achievements in the area of electronic communications have resulted in a widespread adoption of electronic interaction to execute many transactions. For example, users are more frequently relying on equipment such as desktop computers, laptop computers, tablet computers, smart phones, etc. to complete various tasks electronically. Examples of these tasks may include, but are not limited to, personal interaction (e.g., texting, email, social media, etc.), professional interaction (e.g., email, videoconferencing, etc.), scheduling, financial transactions, commercial transactions, location determination, navigation, etc. The tasks may be facilitated by applications that execute on the equipment. In the performance of these tasks an application may request or require that a user input sensitive or confidential data including, for example, personal identification data, contact data, medical data, residential or business addresses, contact or client lists, account numbers, professional registration numbers, intellectual property, information that may be considered a trade secret, etc. This data may be useful to a variety of unauthorized users, and thus, protecting device/system integrity of has become an important focus for development.
While new security systems are continually being developed to defend user equipment, hackers are also continually turning out malicious code (e.g., malware) to overcome them. This has led developers to move from purely code-derived protections to systems that are not as easy to replicate. For example, biometric-based security systems may be able to sense characteristics of a user's body and use these characteristics as keys to control access permission. Examples of biometric identification used in security systems may include, but are not limited to, fingerprint scanning, facial recognition, iris recognition, retina recognition, vein mapping, finger geometry, hand geometry, voice recognition, gait recognition and various other types of recognition related to body traits. While biometric identification offers some protection in that it may correspond to user traits that are not easily duplicated, research has already been presented demonstrating how some bodily traits can already be impersonated or “spoofed” using recorded or synthesized data.
Although the following Detailed Description will proceed with reference being made to illustrative embodiments, many alternatives, modifications and variations thereof will be apparent to those skilled in the art.